The Invention relates to a process for obtaining simple and/or compound wax honeycombs.
In the beekeeping industry two types of honeycomb are currently used: one moulded of plastic material and the other one of wax sheets imprinted on both surfaces, with only an engraving of the hexagons for the subsequent operation to be carried out by the bees inside the beehive, on the waxy walls of the parallelepiped of hexagonal section which will constitute each cell.
In the first case, the honeycomb moulded in rigid plastic material have the disadvantage of the bees being inclined to reject them because of the very rigidity of the material and unpleasant odours given off by the solvents used in their formation (granular raw material for subsequent fluidification by heat and moulding), odour given off due to the very nature of the plastic and aggressiveness of the rough and rigid surface of the honeycomb once moulded. In addition, there are thermal problems with a mass made of rigid plastic material which does not have the necessary ductility of Wax, and the internal variations of a "live" beehive.
To persuade bees to accept honeycombs moulded in rigid plastic material, beekeepers resort to the trick of using a waxed layer impregnated with substances which give off familiar odours attractive to bees.
In practice, use of moulded rigid plastic material honeycombs is not very reliable, for when it is least expected the bees discover the deception, rejecting the construction and leading the swarm to go on strike.
Another technical problem is that the moulded rigid plastic material, as indicated above, does not have the sensitivity to heat possessed by wax, so that on hot summer days heat accumulates inside the hive, heat which is beneficial for the seed and larvae inside the reproductive cells. Wax cells walls begin to soften due to excess heat, and this softening warns the bees that the optimum heat heat, which has been reached must not be exceeded, for otherwise the seed and larvae will be killed by excess heat, as will the cells.
This property of wax is not possessed by moulded plastic honeycombs. As there is not softening of the plastic walls prior to fusion, the bees receive no warning and do not carry out forced air ventilation of the hive and establish forced air cooling to keep equilibrium between the optimum temperature for healthy procreation and negative excess heat.
As regards obtaining wax honeycombs with only the outlines of the hexagons imprinted, but not having raised parallelepiped cell walls, these honeycombs which are partially industrially manufactured have another great problem in industrial performance in beehive honey.
This problem is obvious if it is born in mind that bees use approximately 10 kg of honey to obtain 1 kg of wax. It is clear that using wax walls engraved by imprinting and without raised cells walls represents a great loss of money and time for the industrial beekeeper, for the wax used in construction of these walls must be supplied by the bees and put in position, so that they finish the honeycomb partly constructed by industry.
The large amount of money not earned for the amount of honey which is not obtained because the bees are devoting themselves to "in situ" construction of the cell walls means that the apiculturist reuses from one season to the next the honeycombs already centrifuged for extraction of honey.
This practice saves using new sheets of printed wax, and therefore avoids the bees devoting themselves to constructing the cell walls of a new honeycomb. There is the disadvantage, however, that after a while micro-organisms develop within the hive, attacking the health of the seed, larvae and bees, and even creating wax-eating larvae.
These micro-organism are a real plague, decimating the bee population with extraordinary virulence in a beehive and in hundreds of hives for many kilometres all around, since the bees carry such micro-organisms on their collection tasks and inoculate the flowers to which other been from other hives subsequently go.
When this happens-and it currently happens very frequently-the hives and all their contents have to be burned.
Thus form the health point of view it is better not to reuse honeycombs from one season to the next, though this is difficult because of the problems mentioned above.